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Burt Rutan On his Upcoming X-Prize Attempt
dkleinsc writes "The BBC is running an article about Burt Rutan, the head of Scaled Composites and creator of SpaceShip One. He talks about his motivation (besides fame and a big pile of cash) for the project."
Do you know how well "Have you ever had sex in outer space?" works as a pick-up line?
i can imagine the headlines... "Bill will 'Rutan' back to earth" lol... sorry i couldnt resist...
Reading this story, I am remided of the movie October Sky. For wannabe rocket scientists, this is one of the most inspirational movies.
It's based on a true story. The protagonist is now in a very high position in NASA.
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
A date which will live in history?
I was under the impression that more money was being spent than he'd win on the X-Prize.
It must be like that joke: I made a small fortune on the stock market. Problem is, I started with a large one.
Putting dreams into actions - gotta love the guy!
Energy: time to change the picture.
The Gates foundation has donated Billions to Global Health care issues.
Lucky me, I have cool boss. ;-)
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
You can't but like Paul Allen sometimes just because of how insane he is. Watching an old Windows 1.0 "commercial" he did, it almost seems like a parody of a computer commercial. It might be, but I cannot tell ;)
They talk a lot about space tourism in the article, but I believe that is a long, long way off still. The first thing that would happen is private launch of payloads, but that already happens..
Even so, even something like $20,000 is cheap for a ticket and right now you'd only get a 10 second ride in space, and back down ya go.
X-prize => Priviate citizen's in space => tourist's in space => priviate "space resort" => Advertisements in space => advertisements visible from earth in space => coca cola constlation / starbucks galaxy? Serriously, if we have tourists in space, they are gonna want to spend time up there, so we will need long term staff in space... Space tourourism (sp) is not a feasible buisness for many years to come imo.
In nature, there are neither rewards or punishments, there are only consequences.
The X-Prize is a 10 million dollar privately funded prize, not a 1 million dollar government program. NASA, the FAA, and any other agency of any government have nothing to do with it other than issuing launch waivers.
It has everything to do with kickstarting private, commercial space flight.
This
The description of the reentry strategy includes none of the bazillion tiles stuck all over the shuttlecraft. This seems like a better approach --- very simple and apparently a lot less heat. Did anyone notice that a Canadian team is also competing for the prize? http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3539018.stm
I'm laughing at clouds.
It's a sad reflection of the /. bias that everything has to be turned into a bash Microsoft topic.
This is another newest story about the topic. http://mirror.metamenu.com/news.bbc.co.uk/3676312. stm
he's going to cue up Steppenwolf before takeoff and ushering in a new era of peaceful space exploration and mini-skirts?
I'm laughing at clouds.
How much have you ponied up to ANYTHING, troll?
Probably never even heard of the Xprize. Nasa doesn't want competition, the government doesn't want lots of rockets taking off without control over them, large corporations don't want satellites to become cheap enough for smaller companies to get into the game (and the government tends to help the larger ones out a tad more..)
You just here for the karma?
Say what you want about Microsoft's lack of fair competitive practices.
But you will be hard pressed to find any corporation their size that give as much back to global education AND global health care. Free PCs for entire school systems, money for AIDS research. How much do you think your friends at Google gave of their IPO profits?
Oh...
Got Link?
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
http://www.ebaumsworld.com/ballmerwindows.html Have fun.
Actaully that's ballmer. I've been on slashdot for too long today :(
It means OUTSOURCING!!!!! Oh no, Bill Gates is outsourcing AIDS treatment. What about us!?
The X-prize isn't a government program. Why would the government spend $1 million on private research when they can spend $1 billion slobbing pork-fat all over the pockets of Halliburton and other government contractors, and projects in every district.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Rutan attacks US policy of striving to keep space access limited to military superpowers, which he believes is evidence of the smothering of commercial activities in near earth space.
How much do you think your friends at Google gave of their IPO profits?
;-)
Hey, some free web searches for all the school kids, maybe? Or (wait!) for teens, and adults, and seniors as well? As in YOU and ME?..
And somehow they managed to do that even BEFORE their IPO! Must be sure that $$ are coming their way...
Paul B.
/me won't be sleeping well tonight after that.
I want a new world. I think this one is broken.
Orbital craft need to travel fast enough to orbit the earth. Fast enough to travel all the way around the planet in 90 minutes. That's why they come back in so fast.
This craft is going to straight up, and fall back down. Much slower.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Why is it that we, as a society, have been so obsessed with the absurd idea that the height of technology in advertising will be the giant orbiting billboard?
.. If the ads were from Playboy or Spice TV, I may even consider opting in. I probably wouldn't even mind drinking Starbucks in that ad--but please, keep Carrot Top out of this.
It would make much more sense to just beam advertisements straight to my dreaming mind.
Every thing that MS does is tied to getting MS sales. Do not pretend that it is purely out of generosity. Google is busing helping in the OSS world and making contributions to the real world without any ties of any kinds.
Likewise, Paul Allen does the same (paul is not MS). Most, if not all, of his contributions do not have strings.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Grants/
" But, he says, ask the same question of Nasa now and the answer is the same as 30 years ago. Nasa is working on it and it will be affordable in 30 years' time."
Yeah tell me about it, on the 27th NASA is going to do a dress rehearsal for the X-43 flight in October. Next month they are going for a new world record in the fastest jet powered aircraft in the world. The X-43 could have led to an airplane that can "fly into space" like Rutan mentioned as wanting to do in the article. However, from what I understand, NASA decided to cancel the successor of the X-43. Which is a shame because it is a very solid concept for finding a cheap way into orbit.
This reminds me of the X-20? The successor of the X-15, that was planned to go into orbit. If Rutan, can succeed with a spacecraft that resembles the X-15 and enter orbit, I think that would show that NASA, in all it's wisdom, has held us back as far as manned space travel is concerned.
cool sig can i steal it?
Diplomacy is the art of saying "Nice doggie" until you can find a rock. Will Rogers
That's Ballmer not Allen. And though the ad is obviously meant to be a takeoff, it is funny to think where Ballmer and Allen would be be if not for MS (and not just to me). From a distance, they certainly seem to be real life Forrest Gumps - not retarded, just out of place at the top of the world. (Kind of like the current POTUS if I do say so.)
I did. :)
I have forgotten who had it (and probably thought it up), but it struck me as one the better ideas that I have seen here.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Maybe Burt Rutan should take a look into that service talked about in the previous front page story!
Microsoft gives free pc's to entire school systems when its part of the terms of settlement of a class action law suit. The courts determine a minimum payment level for proceeds of the class suit, and when the actual claims of the class participants dont meet that level, the balance goes to charitable things like buying pc's for schools. This has happened in california twice that I know of, and probably in other states as well.
As for the google folks, well, they've had the ipo proceeds for a month now, which in reality are probably still mostly tied up in investment banker accounts awaiting various releases and transfers. It took Billy 20 years and the aquisition of a wife before he actually started doing any serious philanthropy. Come back in 20 years, see how Google fits into the corporate landscape, or if it even still exists, and then look at what the founders did after they had some time to adjust to the concepts of having hundreds of millions of dollars kicking around.
As many already know, Scaled Composite's "SpaceShipOne" is set to fly on Sept 29th, 2004 in the early-morning hours (Pacific-time) in it's first attempt to fulfill the requirements to win the Ansari X-Prize. Chat will again be available for the flight and the following flights as well.
We had a VERY sucessful chat-session during the previous flight on June 21st and expect to have a good round this time for the X-Prize flights. The channel is open to all (we prefer you register/identify your nicks but is not a requirement for this channel). IF any 'over-flow' occurs, a back-up channel will automatically re-direct those as needed. A !news bot (Space.com) and !countdown bot is available.
We also set another 'special' channel ( #SS1-FltData ) to record/display near 'real-time' Flight-Data from SS1 but the final decision is still not complete and not expected for the first flight-attempt. In any case, we expect to still have some limited data/info available. This channel is to monitor only, no chatting there, unless you are 'voiced'. The #SpaceShipOne channel is for that. ;) You MUST be a registered nick and identified in order to join this channel. There is no cost to register.
The chat-server is located on the Freenode.net series. Point your chat-client to:
-- Server: irc.freenode.net
-- Channels: #SpaceShipOne and #SS1-FltData
Hope to see you back there for the flights. ;)
b>John B. -("Pandelirium")SpaceShipOne Admin/Ops/Moderator
For other 'space-related' chat on Freenode, goto:
- #space (general-combined channel)
- #maestro (Mars Rover/SAP/Maestro Planning Software)
- #cassini (Cassini/Huygens to Saturn)
- #messenger (Probe to Mercury)
- #celestia (3D Space/Solar-System Simulation)
- #roverware (NexGen Rover/Planning Software development)
Rutan's accomplishments pale in comparison to those of the late great Zefram Cochrane. Sure, Rutan will have fame and fortune, but will he ever get his own statue in Bozeman that looks to the very location in the sky where he made first contact? I think not.
But he will get to see black sky during daytime. So maybe he can die happy.
Bullshit.
I don't think Microsoft is giving much money for global health care. I think that it is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation that is doing that. I think it's a big mistake to confuse the Microsoft Corporation with the Gates family. I appreciate the choices the Gates family has made for the disposal of their fortune, but it doesn't make me forgive Microsoft.
Mod parent to hell.
Does the fact the Gates Foundation is currently one of the largest givers to AIDS research on the planet, to the tune of 5 billion or more, even register with you? Gates has given away more real cash than some on the top 10 list even have.
tl;dr - fuck off troll
But I don't think causing eye-strain and repetitive strain injuries, as a result of Windows, were what the poster had in mind.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
And supported laws that hinder health care
-Colin
You can no longer buy tickets online for their X-Prize launch. It did not say if they are available through other means - you should probably call the number listed on my link to check if you really want to go.
:P
Which is why I am glad I got my tickets the day it was announced
From Wired magazine:
"sweet dreams are made of this..."
Recently, one of the folks from Vulcan Ventures came to Microsoft to give a presentation about their space program. (Vulcan Ventures is the VC firm funding the program, and is owned by Paul Allen, co-founder of MS, which is why we got this special presentation.)
We saw an amazing video: a 20-minute presentation showing their first space flight from beginning to end. Lots of tiny clips have been shown on the news, but in the video we saw, the entire space portion of the flight (from rocket fire to atmospheric re-entry) was not time-compressed. We heard every radio transmission, saw every moment of the acutal space time.
It was amazing. Brought tears to my eyes. (Embarassing, when you're sitting with 80 other researchers.)
There was a long Q&A session afterwards. They answered everything from techno-nerd questions about the details of some aerodynamics problem to visionary questions about the future of their program and what this means for humanity.
It was the most moving and inspiring presentation I've seen in a long while.
Don't get me wrong - the X-43 is a fantastic engineering achievement. It may pave the way for things like a mach 10 airbreathing cruise missile or possibly even a hypersonic jet transport. But it has nothing to do with access to space.
A space launch is a short acceleration mission. You spend very little time at any particular speed. A scramjet is good for efficient and sustained cruising at a certain range of speeds. It's not effective for takeoff. It's not effective for accelaration to supersonic speed. It's not effective for acceleration from supersonic to low hypersonic. It's not effective for accelerating from its top hypersonic speed up to orbital velocity. It's only good for a specific range of hypersonic velocities.
Current plans are talking about using at least three different types of engines to make a single vehicle that can make it all the way to space. This is an enormous penalty in weight, vehicle shape and configuration. It's doubtful if a single vehicle can be designed for all these different flight regimes and still be light enough to make it into space at all. But even if it can be done there is absolutely no way it can be cheaper. The development and operational costs of such a complex system will be staggering.
In short, saying that scramjets are the way to cheaper access to space is a big fat lie and just an excuse for robbing the taxpayers.
Stop worrying about the risks of nuclear power and start worrying about the risks of not using nuclear power.
Point being, if you've got fuck loads of cash, then you can afford to pay £20,000 for 10 seconds in space. Space tourism just requires the public to be able to buy tickets to get into space - it's not far off, at all, IMHO.
Think about it - if Rutan succeeds, then he's proved that his vehicle is reusable. This shows that that he can take people into space and all it takes from there is for him to take someone from the public into space.
Space tourism isn't about taking people to the moon - that's definitely a long way off. The first bit is just getting people into space, and people will pay for it.
im in ur
Must... wash... brain
Business is feasible whenever you can sell a product/service for more than it costs to provide that product/service. After that threshold is crossed it's just a question of how much of a margin the customers will bear and how many sales are required to cover the start-up and inventory/overhead costs and provide a ROI to the capitalists. YOU may not be willing to drop $20,000 on a 1-hour hop but that doesn't mean there aren't thousands of other people wondering where to send their cheque. Just look at how fast the last Concorde flights sold out (at ~US$6000 one-way).
The only way Rutan can be guaranteed to lose money is to stop now before generating any revenue.
You can't buy that sort of comedy...
And why couldn't you get windows if you lived in nebraska?
Slackware user since 1997.
Anyone know if the September 29th launch will be televised or webcast live? I think this would be great for Nasa TV, and I would enjoy it as much as sitting through the Spirit and Opportunity touchdowns.
Please re-read the article you posted and note the 1) lack of justification for the accusations and 2) blatant errors and 3) hostile tone.
Afterward, step back and try to reconcile the conclusions of the article with the following facts. The B&M Gates foundation is an autonomous entity that has already been given the funds to operate, it has no reason to collude with Gate's to increase his fortune. Bill Gates has no more need of any money so has no real incentive to force TRIPS on any government, especially those in which there is no money to be made anyway. And lastly, that the donation of not only medicines, but the staff to administer it is better than having the country attempt to sell the same drugs at any price!
I may agree with you that TRIPS is a poor treaty. We may even agree that the WTO makes an aggregious error requiring small, developing nations to honor the same standards for intellectual property rights that rich nations can afford. However, I would never attempt to spread such disinformation as presented in that worthless blog you provided to attempt to discredit a foundation that is clearly working towards such noble ends.
This really just demonstrates the successful strategy of the prize. It's imperative that the momentum isn't completely lost when/if Scaled Composites take the prize.
That means a new, bigger, harder target next with a bigger prize.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Free PCs for entire school systems
Yes. Like free crack from the Medellín cartel.
I have gas, but my car uses petrol.
As for ET? Rutan hopes there is local life on other planets, because it would be fun to do what holidaymakers do: "interface them". -
We have failed to uphold Brannigan's law; however, I did make it with a hot alien babe, and in the end is that not what man has dreamt since first he looked up at the stars?
You can't handle the truth.
The only way I see NASA TV carrying coverage of the X-Prize competition is if there is a horrendous failure. Then they'll replay the disaster over and over, with the reminder that "we told you so."
Rutan's already made many public statements about the liability that the NASA culture has become. NASA used to be the premiere space program, but degenerated into a self-serving bureaucracy.
We can't expect substantial innovation out of NASA until something changes. Rutan's thrown down the gauntlet, and given them the big "you're Number One!" If he's successful, the budget-minded politicians are going to start asking "why are we funding NASA when the commercial entities are doing a better job?" As soon as the budget's on the line, NASA will be forced to change. But until then, expect the same lackluster performance out of NASA.
Go Burt!
btw, I checked the NASA TV Event Schedule, and there's a conspicuous gap between 27 September and 1 October. On the 29th, you'll be able to watch regurgitated videos of the ISS and other NASA programs.
If Mr. Rutan is motivated by pseudo-egyptian sci-fi and that gets our monkey-asses out of the gravity-well then please lets not forget that many things (the pyramids included) were built on the assumptions of people far-less educated than Mr. Rutan.
I find the line between church and state a much greater cause for concern. Why do politicians have to keep saying that they're right and then name-drop a popular fairy tale/mythos? Yet all over the planet people are happy to do it all the time. I think it's a monkey problem. It's the secret handshake to excusable indulgences, and the exclusion of others. Esoteric belief-sets are not quite as dangerous as formally recognized ones. If Mr. Rutan was a duly elected official, pushing for a 1.2bn package which would create a pyramid/plateau in order to draw aliens to the country then we would have cause for alarm.
One persons' devout beliefs are another's fairy tales. The problem with beliefs stems from the ability of people to stop thinking in order to kill the person who doesn't revere them also. Therin lies that danger of belief.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
The latest list of Billionaires puts Gates on top of the pile. Forbes notes that he is the #1 richest man in the world, despite the fact that he gave away more than 20 billion dollars through his foundation.
And a lot of the things he funds are very worthwhile things, such as health R&D.
We can hate the Windows OS. We can hate Bill Gates. But hating what he has done with a few billions of his own money is not justified.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
Time travel scientist obviously worked there, had been to the future, saw it was 90+% Windows and lobbied to have it outlawed.
The BBC article this slashdot story references explains that Rutan says he was misquoted in that article. He doesn't believe aliens made them. He says merely that we haven't discovered the technology used to buid the pyramids yet. He doesn't believe it has to be alien technology.
When do these Rutans join together under a newly-formed offshore nation? Imagine between NASA, the US and some other governments, and the various aerospace and satellite companies not wanting competition there is likely to be an "accident" planned.
Now, if foul play is discovered, being an offshore nation means that the conglomeration can declare their meddling an "act of war" and respond in like kind.
It is NOT the right or the business of the US government or any government to hold back civilian, private, commercial flights -- so long as plans a filed, certain orbital lanes are avoided, and no objects are tossed overboard to cause mayhem for other orbiting objects.
It would be interesting to see NASA and the various governments LOSE "their" control over orbital or travel paths. If it is TRUE that NASA has been holding civilians back at the bidding of the government, then RUTAN... more powere to you. Defy them.
Make your next plan long-term orbits.
What I DON'T want to see, though, is governments and companies laying claim to plots of land on the Moon. We've got way too many problems to fix down here before we go that far. Proving we CAN cheaply orbit or return to the Moon is fine, I think, but once we demonstrate that feasibility for the umpteenth time, we need to pull our heads out of the sand and divert that resource of money to building more shelters, ridding us of tuberulosis threats, funding jobless or under-income entrepreneurs, and combatting rampant consumerism.
Oh, I forget... building or subsidizing housing has less glory and bang on the return... What slew of investors would want to unload THAT amount of cash? (A few, but not nearly as many as could...)
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
-- Reality checks don't bounce.
Since there is an issue with the automatic-overflow feature, the backup/alternative channel is openly available if it is needed by #SpaceShipOne chatters. IF the main channel fills (there will be no limit imposed), it will not re-direct you to the other channel.
It is named #SpaceShipOne-overflow. The same rules applies to this channel as the others.
Also, to those who are not sure how to use IRC, you can go HERE to learn more about how to set things up and use IRC commands.
** Windows users!: If you are not sure what client you may need, I personally recommend "X-Chat" as it is fairly easy to set up and is VERY user-configurable. It can be downloaded from http://www.xchat.org/download/
This program is available to a wide variety of other platforms/OSs as well.
John B. (/nick 'Pandelirium')
#SpaceShipOne Admin/OPs/Moderator
http://www.pandelirium.net
Rutan's effort harkens back to the days of the individualistic test pilots captured in Tom Wolfe's book The Right Stuff and movie spinoff.
No more boring NASA-bots.
Would be hilarious though if Rutan has been holding back, and flies SS3 instead... they could make a surpise trip to the ISS and do the whole unwelcome guest thing. Eat all the cheetos, steal the remote ontrol to the TV...
1) They bring SpaceShipOne
2) They launch it during the event
3) He gets to send a couple ordinary folks
Oh, and 0) Burt will have a lot to say which will be very interesting.